mrstickball on 17 August 2012
| HappySqurriel said: I expect Apple's market share will continue to decline for some time ... Apple produces high end hardware and sells it at a premium which gives them healthy margins but limits the size of their market. In developed nations where people can afford their product, smart phones mostly do what everyone wants them to so it is difficult to create new features that can justify the purchase of a premium product; and in developing nations less expensive phones are far more viable. This isn't to say that Apple is in trouble, but they primarily sell based on the fashion of owning an Apple product; and that can not grow forever. |
It should continue to hold at the 20% level for quite some time, because I don't think their legions of fans will drop iOS as long as they can sustain purchasing their products. However, at some point, you're going to look at a 70-20-10% split of market share between Android, iOS and other systems.
If Google can address and fix fragmentation in the next 2 years to put developer support fully behind their system, it'll damage Apple's last bastion of superiority - the app store.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
